I’m sure most have seen this news release but it’s worth communicating given the need for true agency participation in the Digital Signage industry 

I’ve been a little hard on all of the associations and “industry” studies over the last year as there has been a lot of fragmentation and disagreement over direction and ownership but I’ve been forced to eat crow more than once as steps are made forward on a number of fronts. (Reference: 1, 2, 3)

OVAB

OVAB (one of the Associations governing/promoting Digital Signage) recently released a note which highlighted the agency “Advisory Board” that they recently put together to help steer/make recomendations for our industry.  OVAB is pretty young (embyonic in 2006 and really only came together in February) but they’ve done a good job attracting some talent to the table.

The line up includes:

  1. Alec Gerster, the CEO of Initiative
  2. David Verklin, CEO of Carat
  3. Robert C. Martin, vice president and group media director for Universal McCann
  4. Jim Spaeth, founder and principal of Sequent Partners
  5. Heather Armstrong, director of out-of-home media for GSDM
  6. Judi Crisileo, vice president of Outdoor Services
  7. Norm Chiat, vice president and director of out-of-home for MediaVest
  8. Dan Wilkins, chief operating officer at Wilkins Media
  9. Kris Magel, national broadcast account manager for Zenith
  10. Damon Peirson, vice president and group director of out-of-home for Zenith
  11. Ryan Laul, managing director for Hyperspace Digital
  12. Baba Shetty, executive vice president and director of media for Hill Holliday
  13. Jeff Minsky, director of NEXT OMD.  

I’d be interested to get a poll of the nature of the attitudes on the new Board and understand who is a proponent vs. who is a detractor of the space…you kind of need both to get an effective critique.

Lastly, it’s one thing to get the C-Level guys on board – it’s in their interest to be strategically involved in new mediums.  It’s another thing all together when you get down to the actual “Buyers” who can lose their jobs for appropriating funds to new mediums with ineffective results.   I’d love to hear how that translation is being done currently.

Congrats OVAB